“Then why are you leaving?”
Her eyes are kihe perso out just beause he did her sars, and this girl who used to turn heads everywhere she went has o hide herself i pe she an find, so Drao fielli everythi belong and how he is forever ied to Harry and the offha Harry makes, how he is he limits are or what lines he is rossing or if he is expeted to go. “And I’m terrified,” He ends with, ursing himself from saying so muh to this girl he barely even knows, but at least she is not thinking about the stares or her skin or the war, just him and his troubles. “Terrified that he doesn’t waill, that I read this all wrong, and I an’t even ask him, beause I’m sared the answer is no.”
“So it’s better to run away?”
“It’s better to be the ohe w hollow, but they are true, he knows it. “Leave before you a.”
“It’s not my pe,” She says, just like every ives advie without bei he loves you. I know he loves you, beause I’ve wathed him, wathed the people that he ares about, a them all the same way, like he would burn away anything in his path to get to you. And when a man loves you like that, he’s not going to want to leave you behind f in the world.” Lavehe table, and she is so muh smarter than he remembers from Hogwarts. “There’s nothing for you to be afraid of.”
“But there’s so muh left to lose, when you know what it’s like for someoo love you like that.” Drao said, the w in his mouth, blistering his tohem. “It’ll burn you up.”
“Trust me.” Her left hand reahes up her right arm ahe sars ing around her, like she had them memorized them. “There are worse ways to go.”
It’s another hour before he finds his way bak to Harry.
&h me.” He drags Drao to him, out onto the e floor.
“It’s not a slow shs, but he still wants to sit dowhis night has beeing. “And you said you hate aype.”
“It sounds like a slow so wasn’t a slow song. It was heavy metal. Ginny was three feet away from them and atually head banging, with Luna swaying beside her, a vaguely bemused expression on her fae. “I don’t know what you’re listening to.”
He loves me, Drao thinks, awo of them are, slow ing in this room, and it’s like the rest of the building is falling away, burning away, Luna and Gin disappearihey just don’t matter, really, ohem do.
“Are yht?” Harry looks onerned. “Or, I mea? Beause Luna said that you seem sad, ahat Luna is nht about things.”
Drao thinks about the house in London, about the worry that’s made a home in his stomah. He thinks about how he is afraid to leave what he is omfortable with, hoe was feels like theirs, like they both have an equal share. He thinks about how worried he is that he will always be in Harry’s debt, no matter how muh they love eah other, beause you annot be saved by someo feel a bit like you must make it up to them in any way you an, and how muh he does not want that hanging over his head for the rest of his life.
But he also thinks about Lave their sars, her iheirs is a burhere are worse ways to go than out in a fsh of fire a is worth it, that they’ll get past those thihey love eah other arohis mess that the world has left them in.
(Maybe. Most likely. But that had he night before, when he paked all his lothes with a wave of his wand ao s of the house with just beause it would hurt less, but he ould o halfway dowairs before he turned around ao bed, sh with silent sobs, hot tears streaming down his fae and dripping dows.)
“Of ourse I am.” He knots his fihe fabri of Harry’s shirt. “We’re golden.”
Chapter 39
Harry
When he was you upboard uairs and w if he wet out, thinking oeps reaking over his head and the spiders trembling on the eiling. He had no way to trak time other than the hunger pains r in his stomah, and he was hungry all the time bak thehe Dursleys had all left for some family outing and Harry was left in there, alohis was, of ourse, before they added the lightbulb), it was like the o of time did all.
&here was his, this yellowed, lumpy mattress and his too big jeah the splihe time he had lost his head ao w his way out into the hallway (his fingers had bled for months after), like he was existing in a bk hole, somepe where no one would hear his sreams, where if he had died like Ver asking him to do, no one would ever eveed.
(Like Shrodi, Hermioold him, oh year, when she fihe questions about his life in the muggle world that she and Roo kold her, the worry ahe never ending pai of him in one long rush of aion, like you exist and you doime, beause until that door opehing but your own mind to deide, no sensory input to remind you that you are alive, aared at her, dumbstruk, bef yes, yes, that was it so gd that it had been put into words that made some sort of sense.)
T